# Spine - Audiobook Player — Audiobooks, finally beautiful > Beautiful audiobook player with gamified listening habits and cloud sync. (iPhone/iPad app by Accelyze Inc..) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/spine-audiobook-player/id6764636615 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [Accelyze Inc.](https://appshunter.io/developer/1895859588) - Category: Books, Entertainment - Price: Free - Rating: 4.80/5 from 25 App Store ratings · 8 written reviews indexed - Age rating: 12+ - Requires: iOS 26.0 · 13 MB - Languages: American English, French (France), German (Germany), Japanese, European Spanish - Released: 2026-05-14 - Data updated: 2026-09-04 - Monetization: free - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/spine-audiobook-player/id6764636615/reviews.md ## What is Spine? Spine is the audiobook app you'll actually leave open. It streams from your own cloud library, syncs with Hardcover, and turns the habit of listening into something worth coming back to with listener levels, daily streaks, and a year-in-review Recap bright enough to share. Built native for iOS 26, with Liquid Glass, serif typography, and a player carved into the book's detail page. No subscription. No ads. No in-app purchases. No account to create with us. Bring your own library, keep your own data. WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT • ONE PAGE FOR THE BOOK: No separate Now Playing screen. Cover, scrubber, transport, speed, sleep timer, chapters, and bookmarks all live inline on the detail page, on an ambient backdrop tinted by the cover. • CHAPTERS THAT JUST WORK: Single-file M4B audiobooks expose their chapters automatically. Cloud folders with multiple M4Bs split into separate library entries. No manual editing, no reprocessing. • HARDCOVER SYNC: Just listen. Spine logs progress and finished books to Hardcover, pulls cover art, genre, and structured series data, and keeps your shelves in sync. • ON-DEVICE INTELLIGENCE: Open the next book in a tracked series and Spine writes a two-sentence "previously on…" recap from what you've already finished. It also rewrites bloated marketing descriptions into a calm summary, captions your Recap, and cleans up filename-salad titles. All on Apple's on-device foundation model. Nothing about your library leaves the phone. • LEVELS, STREAKS, AND GOALS: Lifetime hours unlock six tiers, from Sapling to Oracle. A unified daily/yearly goal card, a streak chip, and a year-spanning heatmap show the shape of your habit at a glance. • A RECAP YOU'LL WANT TO SHARE: Five bright screens covering hours, finished books, top author and genre, monthly rhythm, and the books you marked Read on Hardcover. One tap stitches the whole thing into a postable image. • PLAYBACK THAT PAYS ATTENTION: Step away for a moment and Spine rewinds a few seconds when you press play. The sleep timer fades audio gently to zero. Finish a series entry and the next book surfaces automatically. • LIVE ON THE LOCK SCREEN: Live Activities follow the current book onto the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island, with a tappable Play/Pause. The home-screen widget mirrors the same control on a cover-tinted backdrop, toggle playback in one tap, even when Spine isn't running. • BOOKMARKS WORTH KEEPING: Tap to mark any moment with a written note. Tap to jump back later. • SEARCH THAT POINTS SOMEWHERE: Open the search tab cold and you get a trending-genre card tuned to what you actually listen to, a Discover list of Audible new releases, and trending shortcuts. Most people aren't searching their own shelf, they're looking for the next thing. • EVERY BOOK IS A DOORWAY: Detail pages carry "More by author", "Top in genre", and a "Part of {Series}" rail that interleaves the books you own with the Hardcover siblings you don't, in reading order, right under your bookmarks. • CLOUD LIBRARY, REPAIRED IN ONE TAP: When a cloud title expires or goes stale, Spine flags it on the detail page and offers a one-tap re-download. No re-adding, no losing your progress. • SPOTLIGHT-INDEXED: Search your library from anywhere in iOS. PRIVACY BY DEFAULT Spine has no servers, no analytics, and no third-party SDKs. API keys live in the iOS Keychain. Your library, listening history, and bookmarks stay on your device (and sync via your own iCloud, if you enable it). The on-device AI features run on Apple Intelligence — your books never leave the phone. REQUIREMENTS • iPhone running iOS 26. • A cloud audiobook library. • A free Hardcover account is recommended for metadata, search, and read sync. • Apple Intelligence-eligible device is required for the optional AI features (everything else works without it). ## Key features - Integrated audiobook player - Listener levels and daily streaks - Hardcover sync - On-device AI summaries - Shareable year-in-review recap - Lock screen and widget controls ## Recent user reviews (8 of 8) All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/spine-audiobook-player/id6764636615/reviews.md ### 5/5 — Works exactly like it should *2026-08-29* Finally found an audiobook player with cloud API support to my private library. ### 5/5 — It just does *2026-08-14* Works elegnatly. Solid and clean UI. I love it. ### 5/5 — Amazing *2026-07-20* A great app for audiobooks, easy to find and add books and connects to multiple sources. Keep up the great work! ### 3/5 — Made up fake metadata *2026-07-11* Update: thanks for the info about the Metadata setting, but it doesn’t really do anything useful. I shouldn’t have to go through and edit made-up metadata. It would be better if you included a setting to prevent the app from trying to guess what my files are. Outside of the app, all of my files either already have real metadata or are organized in to folders. The app’s unwanted attempts to automatically find something I’m not looking for l make it useless. Original: This app looked to be exactly what I wanted: and audiobook player that supported syncing with a local folder. However, when I add the folder, it made up fake, useless metadata for a great number of the files in the folder. I’ve deleted the app for now. **Developer response:** Thanks for trying and I appreciate your feedback! The behavior you experienced can happen if some of the audiobooks were a collection of m4a, m4b files. There is a 'Manage Metadata' option in Settings to handle this. Or you may manually merge multiple files into a single book under 'Update Metadata'. ### 5/5 — Thank you for the App *2026-07-09* It works like a charm. ### 3/5 — Made up fake metadata *2026-06-22* This app looked to be exactly what I wanted: and audiobook player that supported syncing with a local folder. However, when I add the folder, it made up fake, useless metadata for a great number of the files in the folder. I’ve deleted the app for now. ### 5/5 — Great app *2026-06-19* Easy to use and setup. ### 5/5 — Top tier audiobook app. *2026-06-10* This is by far the best audiobook app. Allowing the user to use a self-hosted server…..and other methods. ## Frequently asked questions about Spine ### Does Spine have ads? No, Spine is completely ad-free. The app explicitly states 'No ads' and is designed to provide an uninterrupted listening experience. ### What is the price of Spine? Spine is available for free. There are no costs associated with downloading or using the app, as it does not feature in-app purchases or subscriptions. ### What devices does Spine support? Spine is currently supported on iPhone. The app is built natively for iOS, leveraging features like Liquid Glass and Live Activities. ### How does Spine handle audiobook chapters? Spine automatically exposes chapters for single-file M4B audiobooks. For cloud folders with multiple M4Bs, it splits them into separate library entries without requiring manual editing or reprocessing. ### Can Spine sync with other services? Yes, Spine syncs with Hardcover. It logs your listening progress and finished books, pulls cover art and genre data, and keeps your shelves synchronized. ### What age rating does Spine have? Spine has an age rating of 12+. This indicates it is suitable for users aged 12 and older, with content generally considered appropriate for this age group. ### How often is Spine updated? Spine was last updated on June 24, 2026, with version 1.1.2. This suggests a recent update, indicating ongoing development and support for the application. ### What makes Spine's player unique? Spine features an integrated player where cover art, scrubber, transport controls, speed, sleep timer, chapters, and bookmarks are all on the book's detail page, creating a seamless experience. ## Version history (last 5 releases) ### 1.1.11 — 2026-08-28 Minor fixes to download feature ### 1.1.10 — 2026-08-25 Big collections finally arrive as the books they actually are, your library opens instantly, and you can correct any detail yourself. - Mixed collections group correctly. A cloud library download with a folder per book now comes in as the books it really contains, with the multi-part novel kept together. - Split and merge, one folder at a time. Merge gathers just the folder you're in, named right there in the sheet, instead of reshaping the whole download. Changed your mind? Use automatic grouping hands it back to Spine. - Tidier titles. Numbering prefixes are stripped and a series name repeated on every volume is dropped, while a title that genuinely contains numbers keeps them. - Returning to your library is instant. The couple-second freeze on the Library tab is gone, along with the covers that blanked out and slowly refilled. The bigger your library, the more you'll notice. - Covers stay put. Artwork you've already seen stays loaded when you scroll back or lock your phone, and downloads far less data than before. - Edit any detail yourself. Title, author, narrator, series and series number are editable straight from Update Metadata - tap a row and type. Each field shows what Spine matched underneath, with one tap to revert. - Fewer wrong matches, and clearing one sticks. Spine no longer confidently attaches a completely unrelated book to a sparsely-named file, and a match you clear stays cleared instead of coming back on the next refresh. - Your place reaches your own server sooner. If you listen through a self-hosted library, Spine sends your position the moment you pause or finish a chapter. ### 1.1.8 — 2026-08-18 Your metadata corrections can now follow you between devices, and disconnecting a cloud library leaves the rest of your books alone. - Curation Sync. Fix a title, author, narrator, or series, add an ASIN, or link a book to Hardcover, and that correction can travel to your other devices through your cloud library. Turn it on in Settings — it's off by default. After that it looks after itself: edits are pushed as your library refreshes, a pending edit survives a relaunch, and your other devices pick them up on their own. The newer correction wins when two devices disagree about the same book. Only edits you made are shared, never Spine's automatic matches, so one device's guess can't overwrite another's correction. Switching it on, or tapping Sync Now, also sends the corrections you'd already built up beforehand. It reaches any device signed in to the same account, even one on a different iCloud account. - Disconnecting a cloud library is safer for everything else. Disconnecting could clear metadata for your other libraries, remove downloads that came from elsewhere, and reset your listening progress. It now only forgets what belongs to that library. ### 1.1.6 — 2026-08-11 Audiobooks your cloud service clears for inactivity now come back on their own. - Automatic restore. Spine spots which audiobooks have been cleared, marks them in your library, and quietly re-downloads them in the background keeping their progress, bookmarks, and place in Recently Added. The detail page tells you which stage each one is in. - AirLock. Exempt an audiobook from being cleared: long-press one, select several, or flip a single switch in Settings to protect your whole library and everything new as it arrives. - Group by AirLock. See in one scroll which books are protected and which are still on the clock. - Clean Up. Free space from the rare title that can't be recovered. - Cleaner AI summaries, and updated for iOS 27. ### 1.1.4 — 2026-08-04 Your whole library now loads even on a bad connection. Opening Spine, or CarPlay, on spotty data could leave you looking at only your downloaded books until you pulled to refresh. Spine now tells the difference between an empty library and one it couldn't reach, keeps your shelf through a dropout, and retries on its own until everything's back. ## Related topics [hardcover og](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/hardcover-og) · [abookio audiobook player](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/abookio-audiobook-player) · [hardcovers](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/hardcovers) · [nomad bookplayer](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/nomad-bookplayer) --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-04.*